


Is it normal?

by Laura_Sinele



Series: Fictober 2020 [11]
Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016), Supernatural
Genre: Age Difference, Alcohol, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Billy Hargrove Is Bad at Feelings, Billy Hargrove Needs a Hug, Billy Hargrove is Bad at Communicating, Billy Hargrove is Not Okay, Bisexual Billy Hargrove, Bisexual Dean Winchester, Canon-Typical Violence, Canonical Character Death, Cigarettes, Closeted Billy Hargrove, Closeted Character, Coming Out, Crossover, Dean Winchester is Bad at Feelings, Dean Winchester is Not Heterosexual, Denial of Feelings, Dysfunctional Family, Family Dynamics, Feelings Realization, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, Implied/Referenced Sex, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Non-Explicit Sex, Openly Bisexual Dean Winchester, Past Character Death, Protective Dean Winchester, Rare Pairings, Rare Relationships, Sam Winchester is So Done, Temporary Character Death, Underage Drinking, Underage Smoking, see notes - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-11
Updated: 2020-10-11
Packaged: 2021-03-08 02:49:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,781
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26958352
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Laura_Sinele/pseuds/Laura_Sinele
Summary: Sam and Dean Winchester had an odd job at a town called Hawkins. They end up recruiting the alleged ghost they were supposed to get rid of, an eighteen-year-old born in 1967 called Billy Hargrove. The road ahead takes them to California, where Billy would get to understand how much things have changed since he last was there.
Relationships: Billy Hargrove/Dean Winchester
Series: Fictober 2020 [11]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1951714
Comments: 3
Kudos: 15
Collections: Fictober20





	Is it normal?

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Tumblr event Fictober, prompt 12: 'Watch me'
> 
> On the age difference:  
> There's an eight years gap between Billy and Dean. Billy is 18-19 and Dean 26-27.
> 
> On the story:  
> There's not much plot, it's more like a succession of scenes, but I really wanted to work with this rare pair, and the prompt fit really well. I'd like to flesh it out a bit more in the future if I have the time and spoons.

Hawkins was a messed up town. After fixing things around the "haunted" house, there was still some serious shit going on in that place. Something to do with a secret government lab back in the eighties. Something too creepy even for the Winchesters. 

Sam was saying goodbye to the lucky family that had just had an angry not-exactly-a-ghost evicted from their new property, and Dean was already heading to the car. The whole place made him uneasy. Actually this whole case had hit him hard for some reason. The sooner they were out of town, the better. 

In the car, none of them spoke for a while. Dean didn’t even put on any music. It hadn’t been his most gorey case nor the scariest, but it was probably the weirdest. With ghosts, demons, geenies, ancient gods and cryptids there were always a set of rules you could rely on. Salt keeps them away, sacrifices calm them, and all that jazz. But this? This just didn’t make any sense. So they just drove away. Or so they intended. 

There was a bus stop at the side of the road right outside of Hawkins. It was just a pole with a sign on top of it and a laminated timetable nailed at eye level. Billy Hargrove was leaning against it, spectacular mullet flowing in the breeze, brow furrowed as he tried to figure out the cellphone they had just given him that morning. He was wearing some of Sam’s old clothes and had Dean’s old rucksack at his feet. Dean pulled over. 

‘What are you doing?’, asked Sam in what he thought was his calm, reasoning voice. To Dean it sounded as if Sam was getting the tranquilizer gun ready for him. 

‘Where do you think he’s going?’, Dean wondered, ignoring Sam’s question.

‘I don’t know, California maybe? He said he lived there before moving here’.

‘Look at that, he’s about to smash the phone against the ground’.

‘Doesn’t look any different from you reading your messages’.

Dean punched Sam in the arm. Billy smashed the phone against the ground. 

‘I’m gonna talk to him’, said Dean.

‘Wait, what, why?’

‘Oh, come on Sammy, we can’t leave him like that! The man’s missed almost thirty years and he wasn’t what you’d call stable to begin with’.

‘How is that our responsibility? Dean, we talked him out of killing those people, we gave him money, and clothes and a phone, what else can we do?’

‘Hey, what’s going on with you? I am not the clingy one, it’s you who always want to go the extra mile when it comes to helping others. What’s different with him?’

‘Well, for starters, he is dead. We were at his grave, we burnt his bones and it did not stop him. So he’s not a ghost or a zombie, he’s dead but he’s got a tangible body that materialised little by little over the days, out of nowhere. We don’t know what the hell he is!’, he paused, thinking that he had made his point clear, but Dean was holding his gaze in that particular way, the one that told Sam that nothing he had just said was going to change Dean’s mind. So Sam kept talking: ‘Look, we already helped him to start a life from scratch, what do you want to do? Invite him to tag along? Take him hunting with us? That’s, that’s, that’s nonsense!’, blurted Sam. 

Dean just looked at him for a while, and then some more. 

‘Oh, no. No, Dean, he could be a demon for all we know, you can’t do that!’

‘Watch me’, said Dean, and he got off the car.

Billy noticed him at the sound of the car door shutting. He had been crouching over the phone, brushing the dirt off of it, and he stood when he saw Dean coming. 

‘Hey, man’, Dean said.

‘Hey’.

‘Those are hard to understand, don’t beat yourself about it’, Dean said pointing at the phone in Billy’s hand. 

‘Yeah, your brother mentioned they’re easy for anybody but you, so…’

‘Little shit…’, mumbled Dean, taking a murderous look back at the car. 

‘You wanted something?’, drawled Billy squaring his shoulders and throwing his head back. 

‘Uh, just, you know. Say goodbye, wish you luck…’

‘You did that this morning’

‘Yeah, well, we were driving by and...’, Dean was starting to sweat. ‘Actually I was wondering, where are you planning to go?’

‘No idea. Just gonna take the first bus that stops here. I can’t exactly go finding any relatives and, the way I died, people here sure remember. I gotta get out of Hawkins’. 

Dean needed a moment to let that sink in. This dude, this kid actually, had  _ died _ . In a very freaky way. But also in a very heroic way. And now he was back from the dead and he remembered all of it. And he had no one to talk about it.

‘Yeah, figures’, he said, going for conversational, but with his mind already made up . ‘Listen, uh… Sammy and I, we are always on the road. It’s not a life of luxury, but it’s honest work. It doesn’t pay though, ha. I mean, you don’t really have a place in this world, in this time. And I thought maybe you would like to join us? I mean, Sammy could use a younger brother figure, see how it feels to have a kid pestering him for once, huh’, he finished feeling the most awkward since he first tried to sweet talk a girl. 

Billy tilted his head, keeping his eyes on Dean’s. 

‘I guess I need someone to buy me cigarettes. No one’s selling me without an ID’.

Dean stammered, not sure if that was a yes, and not really sure if he approved of Billy smoking being eighteen. But then again, was he even eighteen? He was born in 1967. Were his lungs even real? Could he die of cancer? Could he  _ die _ , period?

‘Even better’, he managed to say, ‘we’ll get you a fake ID’.

* * *

The road so far had been dull and awkward, with nothing much to hunt down and three grown men sharing one motel room at a time. That night they went out to celebrate getting rid of a haunted cabinet. As usual, Sam turned in first, and a few hours later so did Dean. But it was Billy’s first night out with them, and Billy, well, he passed out while trying to get the key in the lock at seven in the morning. 

Sam had just taken a shower when he heard the  _ thud  _ outside. He had been worried sick after waking up to find Billy missing, but when he saw him through the window, sprawled on the ground, the relief lasted just a fraction of a second before outrage settled in. 

Dean was dead to the world, face down on the matress, clothes and boots still on. So Sam had to take care of Billy on his own, wearing nothing but a towel, and feeling like an undervalued mother hen. He dragged an unconscious Billy inside, dropped him on the empty bed, and stopped a moment to catch his breath and look disapprovingly at the two snoring punks. He knew right there and then that this wasn’t going to be the last time. He stomped into the bathroom slamming the door shut. None of the sleeping beauties woke up to the noise. 

* * *

Things had fallen into place between the three of them in the months since Billy joined them. And things were that Sam was the default designated adult, Billy was rarely allowed behind the wheel but more often than Sam was, Dean had someone to ramble on to about music and cars, and none of them talked about their feelings. Ever. 

Billy’s feelings were plenty and loud, but they were buried so deep you only ever got to see a hint of happiness here or sadness there, covered by a generous display of bad boy conceit and sorta deranged badassery. Sam’s were right there on his sleeve, he just never addressed them unless they were annoyance. And he was annoyed most of the time. At Dean and Billy being reckless pieces of shit, mainly. As per Dean, he only operated with two basic emotions: hunger and protectiveness. As far as he was concerned, there was no place for any other feeling on their line of business. That is, until the night Billy disappeared. 

They were somewhere in California, and as they could have expected, Billy had been tense since they’d crossed the state line. Following their long tradition of emotional constipation, none of them mentioned it. They had come to find out if there was a homophobic ghost pestering a couple of newly weds or it was just a stunt. It turned out to be a whole gang of homphobic ghosts, but they got rid of them. And yes, Billy had been stiff and quiet for the most of it, but he had put his weight in, as always, and they got the job done. That’s why neither Sam nor Dean expected him to do something off-the-wall like going missing. 

The three of them went out with a plan to have a couple of drinks and turn in early to hit the road in the morning, but that plan had almost never worked out and it wasn’t about to work out now. At the bar, Sam had just had a nice chat with some Law students, out to celebrate an early Pride month, and decided it was a good time to head back. Billy bumped into him on his way in after smoking a cig. Sam asked if he wanted to come with, but Billy, oddly sober, said he’d stay to keep an eye on Dean, who was currently dancing inside a cage and showering in dollar bills. The next morning, Sam and Dean woke up roughly at the same time in the same bed to find the other one empty and neatly done. 

‘Didn’t he come back here with you?’, scolded Sam as he scrambled for his cellphone. 

‘What am I, his babysitter?’, shot back Dean, checking his messages with a furrowed brow. ‘Nothing here’. 

‘Well you’re the big brother and the one who decided to adopt him. You could start acting like it’, suggested Sam contemptuously, dialing Billy’s number. 

They heard the ringtone coming from the bedside table. 

‘Shit’, they said as one. 

* * *

The whole trip around town was spent bickering. In between asking people and checking places, Sam pestered Dean with all the times Dean had been irresponsible and all the times Sam had told him something would go wrong and it did. And still, Sam was the one leading the search, coming up with the right ideas and making the sensible questions. Dean was just downright terrified. Emotion number three, hey ya there. 

After four long hours, they headed back to their room tired and starving. Sam was still babbling, Dean still scared shitless. 

‘He’s a kid, Dean! He’s just nineteen, and we take him along, killing monsters and whatnot and then we get him a drink or four to celebrate!’, said Sam exasperated. Dean knew this was how Sam dealt with his fear of losing Billy, but he wasn’t about to let that go. 

‘Are you serious? If what we found out is true, this  _ kid  _ knew monsters bigger and meaner than we’ve ever seen when you were still in diapers! I’m sure he can fend for himself, legally drunk or not’, he retorted as he opened the door. 

‘You guys are done fighting about me?’, said Billy, sitting at the edge of one bed, leaning back on one hand, holding a lit up cigarette with the other, and balancing an ashtray precariously on one knee. 

Sam broke the silence from behind a frozen Dean.

‘Oh, God. I’m going to grab a bite, you deal with this’.

‘Give me a sec’, Dean told Billy, and closed the door leaving him alone inside. 

There was a quick, hushed fight outside, in which Sam managed to convince Dean that if he went around picking up puppies from the street, he had to take care of them. Then Dean came in again. Billy was now lying across the bed with his feet on the floor. He had moved the ashtray to his stomach and had started another cig. He didn’t move when Dean sat opposite him on the other bed. 

‘What the fuck, dude’, said Dean. It wasn’t a question, so Billy didn’t answer. ‘Where were you?’

‘Out’, he said. He didn’t move. 

‘And your phone?’

‘I forgot’.

_ Cool _ , thought Dean.  _ So this is what Sammy has to put up with _ .

‘Man, you can’t just disappear on us’, he said softly, not bothering on masking all the worry. ‘I know it must be hard on you, I know how you feel but— 

Billy scoffed and sat up, setting the ashtray aside. 

‘You know shit, Winchester, you don’t know how I feel!’, he boomed. 

‘Don’t you dare!’, yelled Dean as he stood up, looking down at Billy with his jaw clenched. Billy looked back at him in mild shock. The hissing of the burning ash of the cigarette falling on the polyester duvet interrupted their stare-off, and Dean kept talking, lower but still angry: ‘Don’t you even try pulling that bullshit on me. You’re no teenage boy and I ain’t no evil step-father. And I know, I  _ do  _ know how you feel. My father didn’t beat the shit out of me but he threw me head first into this life. I lost my mother, too, in hellfire no less! And I’ve had my share of supernatural shit through the years, I might be the only one in the whole wide world that knows how you feel,  _ Hargrove _ , you bet I am. Why do you think I told you to come with us?!’

He stood there, breathing heavily, balling his fists and hording Billy’s stare. After a few seconds, he sat down, and after a few more, Billy talked:

‘Not that it matters, but I wasn’t pulling a number on you and Sam. I forgot the phone, I swear. Then I lost track of time. Lots of shit to take in. Nothing else’.

‘Bullshit’.

Billy chuckled and lowered his head. He took a drag of his cigarette, and looked back up at Dean through his thick, dark eyelashes. 

‘The guys in the haunted house. Is that normal now?’

Dean spluttered against himself. He had been expecting anything but that.

‘Is that normal now? There’s queer people since there’s people’.

‘I know. But they don’t hide it’.

‘It is normal now’, said Dean irkly, almost heartbroken. ‘That a problem? Cause if it is you can find yourself another ride, wouldn’t want to offend you with my shameless bisexuality’.

‘No, not a problem, sir. Not anymore’, Billy finished his cig and crushed it on the ashtray. He licked his lips, stood up and before Dean could react he had him straddling his lap, hands on his nape. ‘And yeah, now I think I know why you asked me to come with you’. 

Dean had to allow many things to go through his brain to understand the situation. It was something unusual, since whenever he had someone on his lap he knew exactly what to do. By the time he thought he had the whole thing figured out, Billy crushed their lips together and all that effort was for nothing. 

* * *

Dean had imagined that Sam would be in the diner at the other side of the road. He found him close to the door, horading all the newspapers and was finishing some apple pie. Before Dean could say anything, without even looking up, Sam asked:

‘How did it go?’

‘Cool’, said Dean, and he took a swig of Sam’s coffee. ‘Where can I get one of those?’, he added, pointing at the pie. 

Sam looked up from the paper. 

‘Oh, no. Where is he?’

Dean looked confused.

‘He’s taking a nap, why?’

‘Oh, no. You two had sex, didn’t you?’

‘What?!’

‘Don’t even try to… Ugh, you know what? I want my own room from now on’, he said as he stood up and picked his jacket off the back of the chair. 

‘Where are you going?’

‘I don’t know. Away. To the movies maybe. To give you some extra  _ nap  _ time’.

‘You’re mistaken, little brother’, said Dean, already sitting and taking over Sam’s apple pie. 

‘Oh, no, sadly I’m not’, said Sam from the door.

‘Oh, no, you aren’t’, Dean mumbled to the pie before wolfing it down with a self-satisfied smile. 

  
  
  
  
  
  
  



End file.
